


All That is Gold

by gamesetmatch



Category: Fate/Zero, Fate/stay night & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Implied mana transfer if you get what I mean, M/M, Romance, takes place during F/Z mostly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-11
Updated: 2017-07-11
Packaged: 2018-11-30 17:53:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11468643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gamesetmatch/pseuds/gamesetmatch
Summary: When Kirei had been but a young man on his way to the church after an errand, he put himself accidentally in the way of a speeding car. He judged the speed and remaining distance with calm eyes and knew it would hit him; and yet he was not afraid. He was, in his last moments, intrigued, even. They said important memories of your life would flash before your eyes. What did his soul treasure without awareness; what would his mind choose to relive? He stood and waited with impatience for his answers.He only saw gold.A KotoGil guardian angel AU/divergence as romantic as I could write them.





	All That is Gold

When Kirei had been but a young man on his way to the church after an errand, he put himself accidentally in the way of a speeding car. He judged the speed and remaining distance with calm eyes and knew it would hit him; and yet he was not afraid. He was, in his last moments, intrigued, even. They said important memories of your life would flash before your eyes. What did his soul treasure without awareness; what would his mind choose to relive? He stood and waited with impatience for his answers.

He only saw gold.  
  
  
  
  
It was later when he realized he could not die. The one who could not appreciate life was most unable to lose it. He wondered if God found this funny, if He was watching him and derived amusement from him. He did not pursue further into this train of thought.

Yet his half-hearted speculations had not been too far off.  
  
  
  
  
Kirei watched Tokiomi gather mana and offer the fossil of the oldest snake’s skin. Light manifested upon the circle and called forth a majestic golden King from the oldest of legends. He stood bathed in this dazzling gold light and shone brighter.

He was an impossible being. Kirei did not have much interest in this Holy Grail, but if it was truly so omnipotent to summon such a being, if so, then--

“Who are you to summon I, the King of Kings, Gilgamesh..?”

Kirei caught his eyes. Red, demonic red, that promised to steal his soul there and then. No, it merely spoke of the contract that was already there.

“Well, well. I will listen to your request.”

The Servant spoke to the Master who had summoned him, while his gaze burned only Kirei.  
  
  
  
  
The King of Heroes liked Kirei’s couch. Or maybe he just liked Kirei. He could not really fathom which part of him could hold the slightest bit of the King’s interest.

“Ne, Kirei,” Gilgamesh--the Servant had not seemed offended when Kirei used his name without formal address, unlike when his Master Tokiomi had tried to call him in much the same way--moved to a relaxed sitting position on his couch and called for him. “Would you believe in the existence of guardian spirits?”

Kirei tried to ignore him and focus on his mound of paperwork. When he looked up again, red eyes still feasted upon him. They compelled him to answer, and truthfully he did not care enough to resist the call.

“No, I do not. The reason being that men’s interests conflict. As such, there cannot be guardian spirits as you call them, for to guard one man would spell the end for another guardian’s charge. Does this response satisfy you, King of Heroes?”

Gilgamesh’s smile behind wine glass teased the secrets of the gods. “Perhaps,” he purred, and said no more.  
  
  
  
  
“If it is not too much trouble,” Tokiomi said to him, “I would like you to keep Gilgamesh company as much as possible so he doesn’t get bored. He seems to enjoy going out into the city. Might you accompany him.” Tokiomi knew the ramifications of a bored King of Heroes. However, what did he expect Kirei to do? Kirei was probably the most boring person out there.

Luckily, the King of Heroes himself didn’t seem to agree with that sentiment.

“Kirei, Kirei, where are we going?”

Gilgamesh bounded excitedly on the balls of his feet.

“Is this world so exciting to you, King of Heroes?” Kirei, who could only see the world bland and grey, was almost envious. So envious of this mesmerizing, inexplicable gold suddenly forced into his sight.

“It is not as beautiful as it was under my rule, but it has some of its own odd charm. Plus, it’s the first time you have asked me out. You are obligated to bring me to a place worthy of this king’s attention, Kirei.”

Kirei was under Tokiomi-shi’s orders to stock up on the mansion’s paper towels and laundry detergent. He thought Gilgamesh would take the excursion to a supermarket in stride. He was right; Gilgamesh laughed heartily as they entered, announced, “Interesting, Kirei! You never cease to amuse me,” and wandered off somewhere on his own. Kirei figured the toys aisle would keep him busy long enough for Kirei to check off the items on his shopping list.

He was largely uninterrupted while he filled his shopping cart. He sensed a disturbance in his surroundings while he crossed out eggs and frozen pizza but it was gone in the instant he reached for a Black Key. He did not fully relax, but placed the frozen pizza in his cart and made his way back to where he thought Gilgamesh to be.

The King of Heroes seemed to be more on edge than he was. The aura around him was manifesting into a darker bronze-gold that warned of danger, and a sword dangled between his fingers. He had used Gate of Babylon in such a context?

“Gilgamesh?”

The sword dispelled into gold dust as Gilgamesh turned around. Kirei’s heart thudded at those hard eyes and furrowed brows distressing that usually perfect facade. What could have caused such a loss of composure..? It was making even Kirei lose his own composure; his heart raced with something not quite excitement but a spark that could've led to it. But then Gilgamesh’s face smoothed into familiar warm chuckles and that moment felt more like a figment of Kirei’s imagination.

Gilgamesh was cheerful as ever as he waved him over. “Come look at this, Kirei!” He held out a tub of modelling clay and exclaimed, “Hahah! God makes man out of clay and now man buys clay to shape whims of his own. Is this your doing, my ill gods?”

If it was Kirei’s imagination again, Gilgamesh’s voice dripped with false mirth as he addressed his last few words to whichever higher beings Kirei could not see.  
  
  
  
  
One day, Kirei returned to his room to find a fuming King of Heroes.

_What did you do now, Tokiomi-shi,_ he thought, as he approached the almighty pouting king propped on his couch. He nearly winced at the sight of the empty wine bottles littered on the table. Good wine did not come cheaply. Kirei was rather well off but that did not mean he could replenish his liquor stores as fast as the King of Heroes depleted them.

“The mongrel! How dare he set a limit to the amount of mana this king is permitted to use per day! He has forgotten his place. I shall not constrain my powers for anyone.”

Kirei made a noncommittal sound as he breached the topic, to quell the anger as was his duty. “Even so, King of Heroes, I’m sure Tokiomi-shi’s request is reasonable. Surely you need not make a grand display every day. The situation is one that does not require the scale of your powers at the moment. Please take a well deserved break, King of Heroes. If your highness desires, I can show you more of the city today.”

“I--” His glare seemed to insinuate that it was Kirei’s fault, somehow. But then he rolled his eyes and looked away to glare at Kirei’s wall instead. “Whatever. I suppose there are some places I have been thinking to visit. You shall be my escort, Kirei.”

He takes Kirei’s outstretched hand to stand, all imposing grace in a plain white shirt and snakeskin pants. Kirei lets him brush past, and follows after him out of the mansion.

“I am honoured.”

“Do not be so stiff. This king will allow you to walk by my side today.”

And they did. They meandered through streets and plazas and glassy domed malls. Towers with a circular floor which revolved to display the landscape in its entirety. Landmarks that did not belong to Gilgamesh’s time. Gilgamesh accepted them all indiscriminately as their king.

Kirei noticed how Gilgamesh liked to touch things on display. It was undoubtedly a marvel how far the material world had advanced. Though the world's treasures already belonged to him, the King of Kings honoured the price tags now attached to them and purchased interesting trinkets to add to his gate with Tokiomi's money.

Perhaps he was still begrudging his Master's sudden imposition on his powers. In that case, it was better to use Tokiomi's money than his own, Kirei figured, for his teacher did have plenty to spare. Archer was his own servant and thus was justified. With that in mind, Kirei led them to a liquor store.

Gilgamesh swiped the best wines and Tokiomi's credit card with a knowing smirk.

"You are more amusing than you think, Kirei," he said in his usual amused tone, while Kirei carried his bags until they reached a more deserted part of the city where the Gate could be opened freely and the items deposited. "The longer I spend with you, the more I feel this way. It is _such a waste_ that the old bore Tokiomi was the one to summon me. Is it not so?"

He liked to touch Kirei a lot, too. In the beginning of their trip Gilgamesh had been walking oddly close to him with an air of alertness tensing his steps. As the peculiar unease waned, those light touches became more playful. Kirei met the Golden King’s attention on him with a stoic face and tried not to think at all. He had come to realize over the course of the day that Gilgamesh was detrimental to the careful life and perfect control Kirei had built up. Yes, Gilgamesh would make sure it all crumbled to the earth. Mayhap it already had. Why else was he not doing anything to stop it? Why should he not wish to stop it?

They stopped by a cafe for a late lunch, which was a surreal experience for Kirei. The summoned spirits did not actually need to eat, but Gilgamesh was very much curious about the foods in this era. It was curious to Kirei just the same--in the far depths of his mind he had to wonder how the strawberry cheesecake would taste to the Uruk king’s palate.

Gilgamesh spoke to him like an old friend; condescending as he always was, but there was familiarity in it that Kirei could not detect in his words to anyone else. Come to think of it, from the very first day he’d been summoned, there had been a connection between them although they had not spoken a word together. That first day had been a flurry of plans and paperwork, and Gilgamesh smirking at him from the shadows as if they shared an inside joke.

Kirei hardly even knew of the legend of the King of Kings before that day, beyond the superficial gleaned from historical texts in his brief and sporadic studies.

So it was impossible, right?

The Grail was impossible, and yet--

Kirei’s heart shook with possibilities he was not allowed to have.

When night came, he said his customary prayers before bed. He begged for guidance, he who had spent the thirty-odd years of his life in pious devotion. It remained sinful, desecrating, as he said those words and thought of blood-red eyes that understood him better. He fell asleep on bed sheets that tangled golden strands, with those eyes laughing at him. He dreamt of crinkling laughter, floated in sin, and realized his half-hearted words could not reach God.  
  
  
  
  
He did not see Gilgamesh around for the next few days.

Productivity. Peace. Privacy. Kirei was granted these things which had made up his previous undisturbed life. Stuck as he was between transitions, he did not know how he felt about those things anymore.

Tokiomi had inquired about his Servant’s whereabouts, which meant he hadn't been aiding his Master with his multitude of plans as Kirei had initially thought. Among them had been the Plan of Sacrificing the Assassins and now Kirei was out of the War. This had not been Kirei's war from the start. He should have felt glad, and told Tokiomi he felt so before returning to his room. Yet he hadn't wanted to let go of those angry flames burned onto the back of his right hand. This Grail War gave him a taste of pleasure and cut it off once it ensnared him. He was convinced now, the potency of the Holy Grail to reveal his innermost desires as well as the hidden malice in the omnipotent object itself. Left without a Servant, he did not have the choice to continue the pursuit. It was a shame. Must it end here? Perhaps Gilgamesh, once he found him, would bring forth ideas. He humoured this thought.

Tokiomi had then proceeded to ask him for a favour in locating his Servant, swamped in devising more and more plans was he. The King of Heroes was the trump card but he was too unpredictable; Tokiomi’s face was pinched from battling too many headaches. These few days had aged him greatly.

Truthfully, Kirei was glad. The half-smile twisting the shape of his lips was true. The reason had not been, but there was not a trace of falsehood on Kirei’s well-worn face. High above in the Heavens there was a being who would have known, but he had been abandoned by Him, had he not?

Kirei did not feel as horrified as he should have been at such a revelation. Maybe it was because he'd come to be acquainted with someone that was two-thirds god himself. If even such a god could be the devil, then the human monstrosity Kotomine Kirei was not too monstrous in the scheme of things.

The spark he’d felt back then had rekindled and now he was damned. And the one who had forced him to face his own truths was not here and Kirei did not have the slightest clue on where to begin his hunt. Time and time again, the King of Heroes appeared in a bout of blinding light on Kirei’s couch, on Kirei’s bed, in Kirei’s bathroom, on a church pew while Kirei visited his father, in the hallway disallowing Kirei from passing through without exchanging snarky lines no one else understood. Sometimes Gilgamesh was everywhere he looked. Other times he looked and looked and did not see him, but sensed his presence just the same.

As Kirei pondered, the door to his room opened uninvited, announcing the entrance of the ancient spirit that did not know how to knock. It seemed Kirei did not have much to worry about. He looked up, offhand remark already forming, but it was caught in his throat.

This was Gilgamesh. Donned in his battle suit, gold clinking on gold, he exuded an unmistakable kingly aura. He stepped into Kirei’s room with a perfect visage and steel eyes. Nothing was out of place with this scenario, except Kirei had spent too much time with the man-god who was the First King for those little details to escape his hawk-like vision.

The way he held his body as he crossed the room was oddly frail, if such a word could ever be spoken in the same line as the grandeur of the name Gilgamesh. He did not take many steps before he stopped and eased his armour into his casual outfit, and only then his eyes searched and found Kirei's as if in a daze.

“Kirei,” Gilgamesh smiled. “You are not going to bed yet, are you? No matter. This king will rest here for a momentary while.”

It was a beautiful smile. Kotomine Kirei who had never known beauty could say so with conviction. A smile of false sugar; a tragic smile carved by a curse and centuries came and went.

He approached his bedside. His mind was reeling though outwardly he remained blasé, his single expression for everything in his immaculate life. “What did you do, Archer?”

Up close he could recognize the signs as to what had transpired. The Heroic Spirit had exercised too much mana given his constraints in the trickling flow from his Master. It was an easy remedy provided there was mana with which to replenish his stores. He could talk to Tokiomi-shi, but this idea irritated him on some level. This picture of the proud Gilgamesh, exhausted and vulnerable on his bed, was a private moment he did not feel right in sharing.

Without Tokiomi's infused gems, the most efficient way of mana transfer was...

Kirei stared at the Gilgamesh curled on his bed. A thin sheen of sweat  
made him almost translucent in the yellowed light.

Kirei reached a hand out to a face carved in timeless marble. His skin was cold to touch.

At his unsolicited actions, Gilgamesh peeked open an eye to glare at him with sharp displeasure. Then he relented so quickly against his transgressions that Kirei felt his hackles rise. Gilgamesh was too bright and too loud, untouchable and unforgettable wherever he went and not this--this--muted, ghostly whisper of a shell that leaned into Kirei’s touch. “Hn. You are very warm, Kirei.”

Kirei recoiled. Gilgamesh seemed for a moment to frown at the sudden loss of warmth but did not stir to comment.

Inside Kirei, a storm surged. To what end had the King of Heroes staked the very energy tethering him to this world for?

It did not sit right with him.

Had he not a foe he deemed worthy--or feared, but that was certainly preposterous--the oldest king was loathe to use his powers. The question remained who, or what, seeked a demigod’s wrath? A definite monster, if such a one could command so much out of Gilgamesh, until he had nothing left to give.

Kirei first thought, _This is the taste--of anger._  
His next thought was,

_Gilgamesh._ Kirei snarled the name in his mind, for it was his fault that Kirei should feel this way; his fault that Kirei felt at all. It was his fault that Kirei now undressed him with hands rough and tearing in poor attempts to conceal their tremors. Everywhere he touched his fingers burned. Red eyes flickered open and watched him patiently through half-lids as he was overcome with emotion.

What Kirei saw, however, underneath thin cotton sheets, washed away his anger as suddenly as it had come.

Crisscrossed scars adorned the golden flesh of his back, softened over the millennia of time but too deeply set with the rest of him to ever fade.

These brands you bear on your skin.

They must have been just. These are the marks of divine judgement. How greatly, how devastatingly must you have sinned!

You must have twisted your delicate mouth into screams. Were you alone, or was someone there, a higher deity, drinking in your pain like sips of aged wine?

You are shameful, Gilgamesh.

And Kirei’s hands stilled, loosening the velvet in his grip.

“You have calmed down.” Gilgamesh spoke. It was not a question. Kirei had a much more burning question, evoking in him finally a feeling of urgency, of haste. Of feelings.

He hated it. But that, in and of itself, stood alone and reigned supreme as the strongest emotion.

“I merely cleansed the surroundings. Be grateful.”

That wasn’t Kirei’s question. Kirei wanted, wanted to ask, wanted,

_Gilgamesh; wanted--_

"Is my suffering pleasure to you? How daring. But I pardon you, Kirei, as I always have. As I always will."

_\--wanted to know, why?_

_Why him?_

Gilgamesh expensed the energy to lift a finger, the one he had Kirei wrapped around all this time. His finger circled and loosened the buckle of his belt. With this one finger, Kirei’s carefully set life became undone. “Now, Kirei, I do believe you were in the middle of something.”

Hate, and love, its rival in every inch of potency, swelled within Kirei. The heat trapped between their bodies was a taste of the Hell that Kirei was descending into. He could not think, not until he quenched this inconceivable thirst.

Kirei forgot his questions, forgot his God, and claimed the sweet vessel of the archaic, solitary, original hero, Gilgamesh.  
  
  
  
  
_Kirei hears it before the scene slides into focus. Someone is screaming._

_There is a fresh corpse in the room. Blood is still slowly pooling into the cracks on the floorboards. It must have been a horrific death because Kirei can taste it, this gruesome killing intent that lingers. And--even more so--the awareness of another presence in the room, shuddering and alive. Because corpses don’t scream, voice blood-raw like the garnet of his eyes._

_Archer’s… memories?_

_He knew with unbridled certainty that the Gilgamesh before his eyes was the demigod Gilgamesh many years before his time, before the Holy Grail would call upon his spirit. Bloodied and spilling blood on the ground, stains in a room Kirei didn’t recognize, crimson as his discarded cape. He is topless, in legplates straining with the effort of remaining upright. Red-hot lines glowed under his skin like poison in his veins. When Gilgamesh half turns, Kirei sees the open gash, flesh torn from his back._

_There resounds in this room the phantom voice of a woman scorned and furious. “You still refuse to indulge me, Gilgamesh?”_

_His defenses stripped bare before this cruel, cruel goddess, Gilgamesh only laughs. “My answer does not change. I shall want for all things in every world, but I shall never want you.”_

_His voice is the same as Kirei knows it, unyielding and faintly amused; his pain a palpable melody in his voice, so sweet; and Kirei_ comes.  
  
  
  
  
Gilgamesh was not unsmiling as he held out his legs for Kirei to dress him. He caught his wrist before Kirei could withdraw it and brushed over the back of his hand where the seals had faded and left unmarked skin. It was an intimate gesture but to Kirei it was empty, though perhaps not unpleasant. What did he mean by that? Kirei was mulling over his thoughts when the King of Heroes observed aloud, “You no longer have a Servant.”

Kirei knew this topic would arise soon. Gilgamesh saw through everything, and would undoubtedly use this as a weakness, anchoring him farther from where the righteous path lay. “Yes. My duty in this War has been fulfilled. I am no longer a Master.”

“And you still want to be one, don’t you? Your heart shakes at the thought of staying put in the corner like an obedient child barred from playing some more. You just need a new Servant, Kirei.” Gilgamesh was still drawing circles on his skin, condemning him with measured touches. Kirei willed away the instinct to retract his hand, knowing it would be a slight to the first king.

“That is irrelevant. There are no available Servants to form a contract with.”

“Oh? None?” Gilgamesh looked up at him with eyes both soft and piercing, his fingers drawing to his chest and pushing slightly, firmly. Kirei’s back collided with a wall. Gilgamesh only slid closer, ensnaring him. “I am sure there must be some who find you entertaining. Someone so _dreadfully bored_ with their pathetic little Master.”

Whatever emotion made itself known in Kirei’s features, Gilgamesh seemed to approve of it. He threw his head back with a raucous laugh, and in the brief moment his pale neck was bared, Kirei thought he could have slit it. Simultaneously, he realized how much he enjoyed this sight. It was like the memories he had seen in his dreams, except Gilgamesh was enjoying it, too.

When their eyes met again, Kirei was sure that Gilgamesh knew of the thoughts that had transpired in his head. Like he had led him there on purpose, after planting every damn seed in his head.

Kirei’s last line of defences made one final struggle.

“Your Master was looking for you, Archer.”

Seconds ticked by before Gilgamesh gracefully rose to his feet. “Very well. I shall see what Tokiomi needs.”

Gilgamesh would humour him. Of course he would. Kirei looked at him, almost reverently, and asked the question that had clouded his mind since the day Tokiomi went in over his head by summoning a Servant that was never his to begin with.

“Pardon me if I do not understand... Why do you choose me?”

“Oh, Kirei,” he sang, the punchline of the inside joke on his smile as he inclined his head to the space where Kirei still stood, “What are you talking about? It has always been you.”  
  
  
  
  
Even later, Kirei dusted books in the library while trying to rid of the unsettled feeling he still held. How was it possible for the King of Heroes to affect him so? He was sure Gilgamesh’s unclothed body will haunt his every dream.

“I can change that.” A voice clear as bell chimes startled him.

Kirei had not detected a breach of the manor grounds. He scarcely turned before strips of white cloth shot out and bound his knees and wrists.

They were tight. Kirei found he could not break them nor cut them with a key. The divine quality in the binds only brought one Servant to the forefront of his mind, but when he traced the cloth to its origin where it was lined with the color he had become familiar with, he found the gilded patterns paired with blue.

A giant bow-ship cruised by the top of the bookshelves, belonging to a woman with flowing dark hair and a fitted crown. Her unworldly eyes revealed her status.

Not a summoned copy of a hero taking part in the Grail War, but a goddess who descended for a reason that Kirei had yet to discern.

“You saw it all, did you not, human? Did you think it was something you could understand?”

The cloth pressed tighter into him. It became more than just vaguely uncomfortable when his bones began to creak. To this unreasonable goddess who tried his patience like another similar being, Kirei asked, “What is the meaning of this? Who are you?”

“It was I who assigned Gilgamesh to you. I cursed him, you see.”

Kirei recalled a woman’s voice from the faint dream he had of Archer’s memories. She sounded as unhappy now as she did then, as unfinished business often worked.

“Assigned..?” asked Kirei, “What do you mean? He heeded the summons of my teacher, Tokiomi--”

“A ridiculous notion. As if a little drinking glass and a fossil would compel a demigod! No, Gilgamesh merely jumped at the chance of revealing himself to you.”

The woman addressed Gilgamesh as if he were one of her subjects. Kirei did not know how hierarchies of gods worked, but it was probably not wise to anger this woman. In truth, he was interested in the words she would have to say. The insights she could offer into the enigma of feelings he might or might not have.

She continued, dragging Kirei into hanging in the air by his limbs like some mock crucifixion. He grunted as they stretched him taut him in every which way. How crude and boring, he thought. “It should have been the greatest insult to him! Gilgamesh, reduced to the background, charged to protect worthless humans in silence for all eternity. It should have made him realize my worth, his punishments for failing to submit to me! Each time he failed as a guardian is scribed onto his flesh. After Enkidu,” she said that name with a snarl that twisted her features into that of a malignant spirit’s, “I thought he would learn. But what do you know? He grows fond of his charge and willingly protects him, at the cost of the very power that gives him the corporeal form he desires above all. I did not think him to be such a fool. But I’ll wake him up.”

Her red eyes had a crazed gleam that Kirei recognized. He might have found her story pleasant to hear in different circumstances. Strapped as he was, about to be torn apart, he doubted how much more he would get to hear.

“When you die, he'll wake up.”

Kirei pulled against the binds that would not give.  
He had nothing to blame but his own folly;  
Stripped bare beneath the eyes of God he realized he was no monster. Just another human, powerless under the ones who wrote the scriptures of mankind on their whims.  
Yet this was not his God.  
His God was--

Blinding golden light that struck Ishtar and sent her careening into the wall.

Kirei’s binds too had been severed and he had been dropped to the ground. Resolutely, he raised his head. He would no longer avert his eyes to his true desire.

“Ishtar. I see you have not matured in the years I have seen you last. You remain as undesirable as ever.”

“Gilgamesh, how dare you…!”

“You will leave this place at once. This is outside of even your domain.”

Gilgamesh stood, a solitary beacon between Kirei and the goddess Ishtar who spat angrily and drew herself back up to her feet. Kirei found himself staring at the familiar back of unchanging gold. He ripped at his own chest with a shuddering hand placed above his heart and felt it race against his palm. What was this excitement? What was this delight? It was potent enough to render him lightheaded in his giddiness. Unbeknownst to him, his lips had split into a grin.

Gilgamesh turned his head. His presence flickered before it stabilized and his aura poured forth in angry waves. He gazed off to the side stiffly, brow furrowed as if he was wrought by a massive headache. “Tokiomi,” he growled unseeingly, “It matters not how many command seals you use. You do not command me, mongrel.”

He returned his attention to the livid goddess as the Gate of Babylon opened behind him, small portals growing in number, each of them calling forth a weapon in his endless treasury. Silently, a rotating key unlocked his access to his most treasured of all--Ea, which would usurp planets and their gods with them.

“You would attack me? Have you gone mad, Gilgamesh! The heavens will execute you where you stand!”

Gilgamesh laughed. His eyes were hard crescents as he did, the upturned edge of his lips sharper than the curves of the blades around him. “Oh? I believe I am doing exactly as you have bid me to do. A guardian is to slay any threat to his charge, divine or not. I have felled countless gods you had sent to kill Kotomine Kirei. You have allowed me this. Even the heavens cannot find fault in my judgment.”

This was the Uruk god-king in his prime, a proud, terrifying and harsh ruler. Despite a body that was not quite immortal, he held the power of the god of creation and a temperament that could challenge greater gods.

The goddess Ishtar who ruled over all that was fertile, in all matters of war, beauty, sex, desire and love, stilled her hand. She took a breath, and seemed to calm as she spoke to Gilgamesh with the last vestiges of fondness she still held for him on her tone. “I am reminded again tonight of why I was inspired many nights ago to take you as my consort. This reprehensible nature of yours is your human heritage, your free will that no god can stain. It enthralls me so, like your little human does you. But know that you are a timeless and ageless being. He will soon be nought but a distant nameless memory, a grain of sand in the passing of time. You may have him but you are mine for eternity.”

Gilgamesh continued to wield Ea as the sword spun a countdown to when creation and destruction were to be uttered in the same breath. He harboured no generosity for one who stole his greatest companion and then tried again. Kirei could not see his expression from where he was, but imagined those carmine eyes to be carved of immutable stone. “I said leave. I will not repeat myself again.”

With a waning smile, Ishtar waved her hand and vanished.

The room was quiet. The Gate of Babylon closed uneventfully; Ea grinded to a halt and was returned to its locks. Kirei’s heart had long ceased its irregular beating, and the storm in his mind quelled. It was several moments before Gilgamesh faced him finally, and Kirei fixed to memory the ferocity in his expression before he smiled, full of teeth.

Kirei extended his hand. Gilgamesh took it, and threw his other arm in a decidedly grand gesture that encompassed the world and beyond.

"Rejoice, Kirei, for your guardian is the King. You are invincible, my Kirei."

He could not die, even when others died around him, even when others died _because_ of him. For Kotomine Kirei had the greatest of blessings from his church, from a God he’d tried and tried to devote himself to he had been heard. The most powerful guardian spirit was his. Their contract extended beyond the realm of the Grail, beyond that of the Master-Servant relationship the Grail could only draw in a limited power-lending contract. Tokiomi had thought to summon his Servant but he had instead made a fatal mistake. And so, he paid for this mistake with his worthless, worthless life.

What else could it be, if not a sign from God, that he had His acceptance of whatever morbid personality was his? His sins were human sins and salvation came in blazing snake eyes and brushed gold.

"Let your nature run free, Kirei."

Kirei laughed, and laughed, freer than he had ever laughed.

He killed Tokiomi with this elation bubbling in his chest.

His wine was sweet with Matou Kariya's tears, as he steeped the last of his sanity into the ashes.

He was an abomination in human skin. He was only human. Heroes came in human skin, too.  
Someday the world will birth a hero to see his end.  
And a villain he will play, a sonata of five years and then ten; the curtains drawing just short of eternity.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
He has a flesh body and mortal dreams. He has a mortal’s recollection of them, fading wisps that slip through his fingers try as he might to keep them there.

Tonight, he’s sitting on a veranda with the moon, the same moon in the sky that has been there since the beginning. Down below, an androgynous figure smiles at him.

He calls out to him, so sure of the words he has to say:

_“I have had but one comrade, and he is all I shall ever have.”_

He cannot see it in this timeline, but he knows the other man, his greatest, truest, eternal companion for as long as the moon is in the sky, is watching over him.

_“I know. Now, wake up._ Gil.”

‘--gamesh. Gilgamesh.”

He looks up at the familiar wooden panels that formed the ceiling of the rooms in the church. Up, at the dumb, sometimes insolent, but always entertaining man hovering over his space.

“Time for breakfast, Kirei? And then torment some more poor souls for lunch?”

“Mm. Rin will be delighted to have us over for dinner.”

Their ending is not a pretty one. Then again, how many were?

Kotomine Kirei, whose greatest wish had been revealed by the Grail: a blaze of destruction and grief that spanned as far as his eyes could see, and a King of Heroes to share the sight with.

If only for a moment, they could fool themselves into thinking that this was love.

**Author's Note:**

> I finished this off for luck to roll Gil in NA F/GO, and it did work out. :'D  
> I hope it was enjoyable and not /too/ OOC, but I did want them to actually kind of be in love with each other, in their own ways, and took liberty with Gilgamesh's story. The ending is open for events in F/SN to still happen, or it could diverge just as easily and maybe they get a happy ending for longer.
> 
> PS. I photoshopped that picture, I think it is the most brilliant part of this work. That is Shinji's arm in the background that I slapped Gil's face over.


End file.
